


The Last Dream

by suprgrl1995



Series: Dragon Age AU [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins, Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Complete, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Hope, Hopeful Ending, Nightmares, One Shot, Oneshot, Spoilers, Visions, repliku is renamed corvin in this au for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29825655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suprgrl1995/pseuds/suprgrl1995
Summary: MASSIVE SPOILER FOR CHAPTER 35 OF DRAGON AGE: WAYFINDER BY CHIBI_MUSHROOMIn which Ventus learns that Aqua healed his father through one last dream.
Series: Dragon Age AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995337
Kudos: 1





	The Last Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dragon Age: Wayfinder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27328663) by [Chibi_mushroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chibi_mushroom/pseuds/Chibi_mushroom), [suprgrl1995](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suprgrl1995/pseuds/suprgrl1995). 



This version of Redcliffe was nothing but a wasteland now. As the months have gone by on Vanitas's mandate for Aqua to heal the arl, the more Ven's home came under the plague of jet black ink. It oozed off of the roofs as if it was taffy, bubbling out of the water like boiling tar, and the air was thicker than any fog Ven could easily remember in his entire life. But this wasn't real life, this was a dream. This wasn't the real Redcliffe- the real Redcliffe would still be healing from the monsters Ven let Vanitas unleash.

Knowing that he was dreaming at the moment probably made things worse. It both heightened and dimmed his senses to something he barely knew if he was controlling or not. Everything about the dreams he had these past few months felt so contradictory. They were real but they weren't. He could be in danger and then he'd be safe within some pleasant memory. He would drown in absolute darkness before finding a small beacon of light that he tried with all his might to follow.

Speaking of a small beacon of light…

Not for the first time, Ventus approached the black rabbit that stood on dream Redcliffe's fountain. It stood there, glaring at him, arms folded while it shifted its weight from side to side. Always angry, always trying to find a way to hide its light. At this point, the small dim light was the only thing he could see in this nightmare version of his hometown. Usually, out of an impulse well instilled by his mother, Ventus would reach a hand out to the creature in an honor of goodwill. But something else happened instead.

“Why do you keep following me?” the rabbit demanded, stomping its foot in annoyance. “Give it up already!”

Ven was taken aback for a moment. This was new. Usually the rabbit never gave him the time of day.

“Maybe...” the boy mused for a moment, “Maybe I don't want you to be alone.”

The rabbit sneered at him.

“I'm better off on my own,” it informed him, “Unlike you who's always surrounded by people that like you. People that encourage you. It's disgusting.”

“That doesn't mean you can't trust other people too, you know.” he reminded her. There was a small pause before he quietly added, “Like me. I… I want you to trust me-”

A name was said. One that Ven knew he said but couldn't hear himself actually say it. But at the moment he didn't question it, as if this conversation was happening in real time and the dream oddities didn't matter. Whatever the case, the rabbit still wasn't budging.

“Why should I trust you?” the rabbit asked in a prudent voice. It stood tall- its chest puffed out like it would give it a greater air of authority. “How do I know you're not going to be like everyone else and just leave? People are useless, Ventus. They always let you down sooner or later. It's inevitable.”

“It doesn't have to be.”

The rabbit's face immediately fell. In a small voice that didn't know whether to be angered or astonished, it asked, “What did you just say?”

Ven took a deep breath in. He had to choose his words carefully. It was the only way to get through to her.

“We leave other's lives as often as they leave ours. Sometimes we come back, and sometimes we don't. No one asked us what kind of lives we wanted to have, or who we'd be friends with, or who would stay and who wouldn't. We can't all choose when we get to leave home, with a lot of us being forced to anyway. Sometimes you just… _have_ to leave home. You say good bye to your friends and family -if you're lucky- and you get thrown into a world you probably wouldn't have chosen on your own. People leave, but people can come back too if you both care about each other. It can be hard, and it can be scary, but you're never alone. Not really.”

The rabbit stiffened as it thought this over. It looked at Ven with a glowering stare. “How do you know so much about me?” it questioned.

“I was talking from experience.”

The rabbit held its head a bit higher. Deep down, Ven knew that he was getting through to it, so he took a few careful steps forward.

“You don't have to, but I hope one day you can trust me.”

“But that's…!” the rabbit tried to argue, but the words failed to come out.

Ven got a bit closer to the rabbit, holding out his hand as a sign of peace. The rabbit looked at it in both disgust and horror before looking back up at him. He then told her something, something that he was aware of saying despite not hearing the words themselves. What ever he said, you could see how the rabbit's expression broke into a sense of defeat. It slowly started to take his hand before bounding at him to give a tight hug.

“I'm scared.” it admitted. Its voice had been so quiet that you almost could have missed it.

“You're allowed to be.” Ven assured it. “But you don't have to be alone either.”

The rabbit held on to him even tighter, burying its face into his neck. That faint light within the rabbit, a light that had called to Ven since he first experienced this vision, started to glow a bit brighter. The light started grow and feel warm enough that Ven came to realize something about this rabbit; they represented someone. Someone he was sure he didn't know, but he wanted to. And for a moment, as he tried to memorize how this light shined when it wasn't being held back, the rabbit was no longer a rabbit. Instead, Ven was holding another human being. He tried to open his eyes to get a small glimpse at them, but the light around them had become too strong. The warmth of their heart becoming so intoxicating that Ven couldn't but slip under its spell.

After that, Ven woke up in the real world again with a start.

“I have to write a letter to Aqua!” he exclaimed as he all but jumped out of his seat- apparently forgetting that he and Corvin had been in the middle of practicing glyphs.

“Hey!” the golem shouted- more because Ven's sudden awakening had startled the bird that had been resting on Corvin's head. “Where's the fire?”

The boy didn't answer at first, quickly trying to find parchment that already didn't have something written on it, along with a pen and inkwell.

“She did it!” Ven happily said as he quickly wrote something on the parchment he found. “Aqua really did it!”

“Did _what_?” Corvin questioned. He didn't get an answer as Ven gave a shrill whistle. With a little flip, a small blue dog appeared on the table.

“Take this to Aqua,” Ventus said as he carefully placed the parchment in the pup's mouth. “She needs to know immediately. You can do it Walt!”

The pup gave a happy, but muffled, bark as it disappeared again with another flip in the air. Elated, Ven turned back to the golem and his bird with a wide grin.

“Aqua saved my dad from the poison he was given.” he explained. “I don't know how yet, but she did it! She really did it!”

The golem didn't seem very pleased at this. Instead, he reclined a bit in his chair before asking in a skeptic voice, “Oh- _kay_ , but _h_ _ow_ do you know, twinkle toes?”

That made Ven pause for a moment. How _did_ he know? Besides the feeling of being more awake now that he had been in actual months, of course. Oh well, didn't matter. Vanitas would probably explain it to him later or something. Ven was still too elated to really question it right now.

“What's important is that my dad is safe again.” Ven told his friend.

“Right.” Corvin snorted. “And now we're one step closer to having to fight a god. No pressure or anything, right?”

Ven answered with a quick nod of his head. A thought lingered though- it was about the light that woke him up this time. The faintest inklings of his dream reminded him that it had been an actual person, but who it was became a different matter. As Ven sat back down -adrenaline wearing off so he could write a bit more relaxed note to Aqua and her company- he thought about that light. A real person. Someone he's never met- or was sure he hadn't met. He didn't know why, but his heart fluttered at the idea of meeting them some day. An excitement, an anticipation, that maybe, one day, their paths would finally meet and he'd finally get to tell them, “You're not alone anymore.”


End file.
